After some preliminary explorations of the Cape, a site for a settlement was finally selected in what had been an extensive Indian cornfield some years in the past. Evidence of the Indians’ former presence was everywhere. Exploring Cape Cod on foot, the Pilgrims discovered and excavated an Indian grave and entered an abandoned Indian encampment, where they found buried corn caches, some of which they appropriated. Later they would repay the Indians for the corn they had taken on that cold November day. But they had only one encounter with living Indians at that time, which was hostile and involved an exchange of shots for arrows; no one was injured in the incident. Had the Pilgrims known the situation, there would have been less concern about the Indians than they must have felt. Three years earlier the Indian population of the New England coast had been ravaged by some European disease, and as much as three-fourths of the population had perished. The Pilgrims were to have no further confrontations with the Indians until the following spring, and their next one was to be dramatically different.
Their first year in the New World started badly. Upon arrival there had been rumblings of dissension from the “strangers” in the company, and anarchy seemed a real threat. This problem was met by framing the famous Mayflower Compact, which established a participatory form of government for the settlers. But even if all had been harmonious among the people, the physical hardships of establishing a colony were genuine and disturbing: using the Mayflower as a base of operations, work parties went ashore daily, constructing a common house and a platform for their guns, laying out house lots, and scavenging food supplies. Slowly, as the winter wore on, a small town began to grow on shore. The work was done under physical hardship, coupled with the latent threat from Indians, who appeared from time to time in the distance but never came close enough to engage in conversation. At other times smoke from the fires of unseen people appeared in the distance.
As the tiny town grew, its population declined. William Bradford’s account of the winter’s sickness lends a sense of immediacy to what must have been a terrible time:
“So as there died some times two or three of a day in the foresaid time, that of 100 and odd persons, scarce fifty remained. And of these, in the time of most distress, there was but six or seven sound persons who to their great commendations, be it spoken, spared no pains night nor day, but with abundance of toil and hazard of their own health, fetched them wood, made them fires, dressed them meat, made their beds, washed their loathsome clothes, clothed and unclothed them. In a word, did all the homely and necessary offices for them which dainty and queasy stomachs cannot endure to hear named....”
Just how hungry the Pilgrims were during these trying times is less clear. Provisions had been moved ashore from the ship and stored in the common house. That these were not ample for the group is suggested by numerous references in their journal to the other foods they acquired—on one occasion they killed an eagle, ate it, and said that it was remarkably like mutton. The appearance of a single herring on the shore in January raised hopes of more, but they “got but one cod; [they] wanted small hooks,” and this was eaten by the master of the ship “to his supper.” In at least one case they found themselves in competition with both Indians and wild animals: “He found also a good deer killed; the savages had cut off the horns, and a wolf was eating of him; how he came there we could not conceive.” But it would seem that, while food was never plentiful, actual starvation was held at bay. Yet if death was a constant companion, hunger was almost certainly a regular visitor to them.
The winter gave way to the warming sun, and on March 3, 1621, “the wind was south, the morning misty, but towards noon warm and fair weather; the birds sang in the woods most pleasantly.” With the coming of spring, there was a welling up of hope. On March 16 a remarkable thing occurred:
“... there presented himself a savage, which caused an alarm. He very boldly came all alone and along the houses straight to the rendezvous, where we intercepted him, not suffering him to go in, as undoubtedly he would, out of boldness. He saluted us in English and bade us welcome....”
The appearance of an English-speaking Indian was truly a source of wonder to the Pilgrims; indeed, it was thought to be providential.